Archives for: July 2006, 17

Some friends and I went to a Bastille Day celebration yesterday (Bastille Day was Friday, but to get those weekend crowds....). We met up at the grounds of the Page Museum and went in to find something for lunch. Pickings were slim for this O, but I did find a Moroccan stand that had lamb, vegetables, and couscous. I got the plate without the couscous, and ate my six little bites of lamb and eight bites of vegetables. It was not much food, but it was a start.

I was tempted by the lovely baguettes and breads, but the last time I ate wheat, my back started hurting so much that eating wheat is just not worth the paybacks!

The Bastille Day celebration was just okay - apparently the first year they did it was the best, and this year was just okay. I did get some information about some francophone organizations here in LA, though, so for that it was definitely worth it.

The celebration was on the grounds of the Page Museum, too, which was interesting because the Page Museum is dedicated to researching and exhibiting the finds from the La Brea Tar Pits, which are on site. I'd never seen the tar pits before, and was fascinated by the whole process. We went inside the museum and wandered around the exhibit - all natural history stuff detailing when what animal went extinct, what animals there were in Southern California 30,000 years ago (lions, and tigers and bears! Oh, my!*). It was pretty cool, and we enjoyed the time there. After the museum, we went to Marie Callender's for something else to eat (where I was not compliant and had a spinach and artichoke dip with corn chips AND a mojito - YUM!) and then back to my friend's apartment and hung out for a bit until it was time to go to the Hollywood Bowl for the evening.

I'd never been to the Hollywood Bowl until last night, and it was awesome. We went to see the "Bollywood Night: AR Rahman & Musafir" The performers included: AR Rahman; Sukhwinder Singh; Hariharan; Sadhana Sargam; Madhushree; Naresh Iyer; Rajesh Raman; Sivamani; Anisha Nagarajan; Global Rhythms; Raagapella; Dancers from Bollywood Step Dance; Sher Foundation; Musafir. It was REALLY fun, even though we were in the nosebleed seats. I don't know Indian music much - I know the styles a bit, but no specific songs yet other than the few in my iPod, most of which are from the soundtrack to "Bride and Prejudice". I love it, though. Just love it. My friend is a fan of all things Indian, and knew some of the songs. Because of the theme for the evening, I was calling it the Bollywood Bowl, which made my friend giggle when I said it.

All in all, a really fun day, except for the sunburn on my shoulders - in spite of sunscreen! I think I just sweated it all off since it was SOOOO hot yesterday.

* In reality, the 'tiger' I'm referring to is the sabre-tooth CAT. I learned yesterday that what we know as the sabre-tooth tiger is not a tiger at all, but is more closely related to cats. I'm not sure how this all fits together, since I thought tigers were considered part of the 'big cats', but clearly I have a background in something other than science of any kind....